


I'll be back

by Twinchester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pirates, Sea Monsters, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 02:48:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6355897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twinchester/pseuds/Twinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean is approached by an old friend of Benny's who asks him for a favor, he cannot say no, but it requires him to leave his brother and Cas behind. Although he won't admit it, not even to himself, separating from Cas again, just when they finally got him back will scar him emotionally more than he is willing to take.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Favor

There was nothing particularly different about this pub. Shabby old pool tables with shabby old man standing around them, each of them sipping their adult poison. The wallpapers were peeling off, proposing that the business didn’t go very well. How could it? This place was the hunters’ hotspot, and it was well known that nobody paid them any money for their work. The cash they got from credit card fraud could barely cover any person’s basic necessities, and constant consumption of lost hopes and dreams did not count as one.

But see, for hunters, a bottle or two of Jack was fundamental. Nonstop confrontations with vampires, ghouls, with things which aren’t even allowed to exist, made them question their own sanity once in a while. Who knows how many years ago, an old hunter realized that thinking about his life would not bring him any further. The exhausted, grey haired man probably noticed that either he was sane or not, and either way, there was nothing he could do about it, so he decided to drown the thoughts in a very deep glass.  
Dean didn’t know who that old man had been, but he liked him. He liked the old man just as much as he liked the rusty pub. The windows used to be of a silverfish color once, but now they were brown. The floor might have been clean and shiny, but now it was covered with muddy footprints of all the hunters who had ever passed through the place. That rat hole was like a really long book written by some weird guy called Chuck, he thought and smirked. It was a book telling the story of every hunter that had ever lived, because at the end of the day, all of their stories were the same: Saving people, hunting things. 

Usually Dean would have taken a place by the bar. He would have picked up the trashy bartender, spending the night in the impala. Last time he had been there, it was the hot blonde tending the bar, and although he liked the ginger one better, Tracy, or was her name Trina, the blonde one was just as fun. 

This time, it was neither of them. He couldn’t see who exactly it was behind all the men sitting on the barstools, but he could certainly tell that he did not care. Sam and he finally succeeded in ejecting Lucifer out of Castiels vessel, and everything he expected to happen that night was to get wasted enough to forgive Cas for what he had done.  
He took a seat at a corner table, not taking off his worn out green jacket. He didn’t have to wait very long, as the bartender reached him almost immediately.

“What is it tonight?” the girl asked with a flirty smile on her face. 

She was obviously new. See, the longer one spent in that pub, the less they smiled, until one day they realized that they were on their highway to hell, and that each and every opportunity they ever had to smile had already passed.

“Fosters” Dean answered, returning the smile which opposed his gruff voice.

“So I guess the day wasn’t too bad, right?” she added.

“Quite a good one, actually” he replied.

The girl grinned widely, as if being happy that at least someone in that run down hole had a nice day, and Dean wondered what exactly it was that she was doing there. He would ask her the next time, he reckoned. That evening was reserved for forgiving Cas and trying to forget Amara.  
While he waited for his beer, he could not help but to feel observed. He looked around just enough to not look suspicious to the other hunters, but he could not spot anyone noticeably important. Again, the young bartender interrupted his thought flow.

“There you go…”

“Dean” he answered. “Dean Winchester”.

The girl’s eyes widened a little, as if she wanted to say that she heard stories, that she had the man who returned from hell and saved the world so many times right in front of her. But none of that was what she said. Instead, the only sentence Dean heard before she returned to work was a quiet “thank you”.

He smirked. He took a sip of his beer as he leaned back, listening to “laugh, I nearly died” in the background. 

He did not enjoy the feeling for very long, as he noticed the table shaking under his elbows. 

He raised an eyebrow at the man sitting right in front of him.

“Excuse me” the man said in a gravelly voice, “but I have something you Winchesters need”.

“Oh yeah?” Dean asked. 

The man’s face was wrinkled, but he did not look too old. His hair was grey at parts, but it was mostly light brown. His eyes were narrow and dull, seeming tired. But still, he had a strong posture. Whatever he had been through, it only made him stronger.

“I might know where you can find another Hand of God”.

Now Dean’s attention was not only captured, he was also alarmed. This man knew things nobody was supposed to know.  
He put his bottle down and leaned close into the strange man’s face.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Listen, mate” he said. “My name is Andre, and you and I shared a common friend once. Do you by any chance remember Benny?”  
Dean flinched at the mention of his long deceased best friend. He felt his stomach turn, as he remembered the moment he cut Benny’s head off, sending him to purgatory. Benny was willing to risk his life to save Sammy, and he lost it while doing so. A feeling of guilt overwhelmed Dean, and the expression on his face showed just that.  
Andre took it as a yes, and he very well knew the story of how Benny died, but he was not there to judge. A couple of years ago he would have chopped Dean’s head off just like Dean did to Benny, but that evening was meant for something else. That evening he needed Dean’s help.

“Benny and I, we were on the same ship many years ago…”

“Wait” Dean interrupted, “does that mean you too are a vampirate?”

Andre responded with a puzzled look, and when he saw that Dean closed his eyes, raising his eyebrows as if saying “never mind”, he went on with his story.

“The only difference between me now and a normal human is that I have seen way more crap” the man answered. “Since I got turned, I never killed one single human being, and neither did Benny after he came back from purgatory. He did not deserve to die” he said. 

Dean flinched again, looking down, avoiding Andre’s eyes.

“So what do you want from me?” Dean said, finally looking back at him again.

“Listen carefully, because I am not going to repeat it twice. The danger that someone could hear us the first time is big enough” he answered, looking around. “There is this ship called Acionna. She is incredibly old, but is still used to this day. The crew is good people, they helped me many times, but there is something going on there. Now listen, none of the men can leave the ship. One step on her, and she claims you forever”.

“A curse maybe?” Dean asked. “And what does that have to do with the Hand of God?”

“There is a myth about her” Andre responded. “It says that in the beginning of time God touched a tree. The tree was glowing blue, and everybody knew that it was holy. But as the time passed, people became greedy. Many decided that an item crafted from that tree would sell better than anything ever created, and one salesman was the one to try it out. He cut the tree and he crafted nothing more but a stick out of it. He knew that he was not allowed to touch it with his bare hands, so he wrapped it in wood and was preparing to trade it for a fortune, but God was far to unsatisfied with humanity to let him do so. I suppose you know the story of Noah’s ark?”

Dean nodded in response.

“After the flood, the humanity reproduced. People had little, so they took parts of the ark and built other items out of it. And that one small piece of wood was taken too, and a ship called Acionna was equipped with it. The legend says that it is still there, to this day”.

“And you need me to climb onto that ship, save your friends and if the legend is right, then I might find the Hand of God up there somewhere?” Dean responded, a little uncertain about his thoughts.

“Exactly” Andre said “But there is a little twist to it. If you go, you cannot take your brother with you. The ship can hold thirty six men, and there are thirty five on the board already. I cannot enter because apparently, only humans can, and the thirty seventh human who sets foot on the ship will die immediately. She is wicked, mate”.

Dean leaned back in his chair a little. He did not like the whole story. Everything Andre had told him showed that that ship was simply wrong, but he felt like there was more to it, something not even Andre knew. His gut feeling told him so, and he could always rely on that. 

He wondered what was up with that legend, and in that moment, he felt very lucky to have an angel at home.


	2. Inferno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> How do you like the development of the story so far?   
> If you have any suggestions on how to improve my writing or how the plot could develop, please leave a comment, constructive criticism is always welcome :)

“That is not an option” Sam said for the third time that morning.

Each time one of the brothers decided to do something without the other, he ended up sort of dead. There was the time with the leviathans, when Dean ended up in purgatory, or the time before when Sam had to defeat Lucifer and ended up in his cage in hell. No matter how often they had seen each other dying, they never got used to it. Luckily, it was always either Death or God, of whom both favored Dean and Sam, and so they never let them remain dead for too long. But the Winchesters could never prefer one of those two to family, and so it was no surprise when Dean, instead of killing Sam, decided to swing a little harder and terminate Death. That one move turned out to seal their destinies. God was still nowhere to be seen, which meant that the words of Billy, the reaper, were nothing but pure truth. If one of the Winchesters happened to die, there would be no ticket back. 

“You were on that submarine, and you almost died. We are not going to risk it again. It is not an option” he added.

“Dean…” Cas said, sounding frustrated, but he knew that he was not in the position to give advice to anyone. Providing his body to Lucifer was the only mistake he could have made to sink so very low in Dean’s eyes, and he did just that. The moment when he said gave Satan the permission to use him as a vessel flashed before his eyes, and he realized that he had already said and done enough. He squeezed his lips, not saying one more word.

Dean didn’t want to listen to his brother. He had not told him yet, but the decision had been made long before he arrived home. Since Benny’s death he had not slept one night without feeling the machete in his hand just as vividly as at the time it occurred. He would grip it tight all over again, and he would swing it with such a force that his arm would move a little more after he tried to stop it. He would then look at his friend who still stood in front of him, and see him smiling. Then suddenly, Benny’s head would slide off his neck, slowly falling onto the concrete, followed by his body. 

And if there was anything Dean could do to get rid of that picture, he was more than willing to.

The favor Andre had asked him for seemed to Dean like a chance to make up for killing Benny. Of course, he would not tell Sammy about it. Sam would try to convince him that it was not Dean’s fault, that Benny would not come back no matter what, but that was not what Dean needed to hear. He wanted to get rid of the guilt he felt, and he was determined not to miss the probably only chance to succeed in doing so. 

“Cas, what is up with that legend?” Dean asked, ignoring his brother’s worries.

“It is not entirely true” Castiel answered. “The Hand of God is not on the ship. Instead, it is hidden on an island, far away from humanity. That island can only be reached by Acionna, and there is no other ship, or any other means of transportation which could do the same. Not even angels can reach it. But when the moment comes and the Hand of God recognizes that the End is near, the ship shall sail to the island and unleash its power”.

“And since Amara is free now, the ship must sail to the island. That is why the men cannot leave her” Sam added.

“So what’s the big deal then?” Dean said. “I get onto the ship, sail to the island, get the weapon and we kill Amara”. 

In his head, it all made sense.

“Not quite” Castiel said. “The island cannot be found by anyone, except for those who already know where it is”.

Dean looked confused. How can be there anyone who knows where something is, if they could not find the island in the first place? The only person who could know its location was God himself, and Dean reckoned that they did not have much of his help lately. He did not see why that time it would be any different.

“I will do it” Dean finally said.

He did not know how, he did not know where, but he knew that the weapon needed to be found. He set Amara free, and now he saw it – the opportunity to send her back to wherever it was that she came from. He owed his brother, he owed Benny what he was about to do. It was the only option.

Sam grabbed his jacket, slamming the door behind him as he left. Maybe he wanted to go to the pub and meet Andre himself, maybe he just wanted to grab some fresh air, Dean did not know, and as sorry as he felt for feeling so, he did not care either. There was a battle for him to fight, his battle, not Sammy’s. Who knew, it might have been God sending him a message. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that Andre approached him with a way to find the Hand of God, with only one place left on the ship.

He walked to a bookshelf, looking for anything on aquatic monsters and sea legends. And boy, there was a lot of material to read. From sea serpents to the kraken, everything was covered, but although he stood there with the intention to read something, Dean saw little use in doing so. 

“Dean…” Cas said.

Dean didn’t look at him. Instead, he kept staring at the bookshelf, trying hard not to turn around and punch Castiel in the face.

“Dean” Castiel said, a little louder this time. “I did something desperately trying to stop the darkness, and now you can’t even look at me. Don’t make the same mistake”.

Dean turned around. “Or what, are you not gonna be able to look at me either?” he said.

Cas’ lips were slightly apart, so that his front teeth were showing a little. His blue eyes were emitting the same shine as always, but they looked more tired at the corners. He looked exhausted, ready to give up.

“You know that that is never going to happen” he responded. 

Dean felt his guts turn. It hurt him to see Cas bone-tired and ready to drop. He owed Cas his life. At the end of the day, it was Cas who brought him back from hell. Without him, Dean would be rotting in that God forsaken place for eternity.

“Listen, Cas” he finally spoke. “I’m sorry for acting like a complete douche, but how can I trust you if you make a decision like that without even thinking of asking me for my opinion? You let Lucifer into your body, man. He killed your brothers and sisters. He almost destroyed the world again. Damn, he was so close to killing Sammy”.

Castiel was silent. He gazed at the antique wooden table in front of him, seemingly not even breathing.

“And if I decide to do this, if I decide to step on that goddamn ship, then I have to know that you will be there, right by my side. I need to know that I can count on you, man”.  
Castiel stepped up to Dean and looked deep into his eyes. There was something strange about the way Cas looked at him. It was almost like he was reading his mind, his soul. Flinching, Dean stepped back.

“Going on that ship” Castiel finally spoke, “will not get you Benny back, and it will not make you feel any less guilty”.

Dean knew that, he did not need Castiel to tell him, but still, there was a tiny trace of hope resting in his chest, hope that he might return from the sea one day and be able to close his eyes peacefully, without the guilt ripping him apart, without worries that the world would end because of him.

But still, how did Cas know what it was all about?

“Cas…” Dean gulped. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

And there was something, indeed. 

Never before had Cas felt more vulnerable and weak than in the days after Lucifer left his body. He had to eat. He had to sleep. He was human all over again, but such a fragile one, that he was worried if he would live long enough to see the darkness being propelled to where she came from.

But on that morning, he did not wake up, since he never fell asleep in the first place. When trying to eat or drink, he could not feel the taste. Instead, he perceived every single molecule that made up his food, just like at the time when he first came to Earth to raise Dean from perdition.

“Apparently” Cas responded. “When Lucifer left my body, his… power …remained. Or my own grace was restored, I don’t know. What is important is that I am back to my strength now”. 

“How can that be a good thing, man?” Dean asked. “It is Lucifer’s grace, or whatever it is that that son of a bitch had, Cas. It is no good”.

But he got no response. Seemingly Castiel was contempt with his newly acquired power, and he would not let go of it voluntarily. Instead, he looked at Dean as if he knew that the boys would try to convince him to let the grace go, and in the next second, he was nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t zap around when I’m talking to you, you s…!” Dean shouted, as he kicked the chair next to him. He rushed into the bathroom, thinking that washing his face with cold water would calm him down, but the realization of what he saw in the mirror made it only worse. 

He looked deep into his own eyes and realized that he was lost. Sam and Cas were only gone temporarily, they would be back, but sooner or later Amara would destroy them all. One day he would wake up and see that everything he loved had irreversibly vanished, only because he could not control his emotions towards a psychopathic bitch. 

He had killed Benny, his father died because of him, and now Sam and Cas were going to disappear too. Hell, the whole world was going to end because he was a wuss.  
Unable to control himself, he saw his fist drilling through the glass of the mirror. He felt a sharp pain in his fingers, the warm blood dropping from his skin onto the floor. And he liked it. He turned around and punched the wall, leaving a hole in it, and then the door, and then he kicked the sink. He would have kept doing so, if a warm hand on his shoulder had not held him back.

“Dean, stop” he heard Castiel’s voice, but instead of obeying, he turned around once again and punched the angel in the face.

He could have as well punched a brick wall because all he heard were his bones cracking, but Castiel, he didn’t even flinch. He tried moving his fingers, but all of them were broken.

“Motherf…” Dean said, holding his fist with his other hand.

Without asking for permission, Castiel took his hand, touched it tenderly, and the pain was gone. 

Letting go of it, he said:  
“I thought about it, and I shall help you get onto that ship”.


	3. Misery

Days had passed, and Dean had not heard a word from Castiel. He had said that he would go and find a way to bring Dean on the ship, but that had already been a while ago. Although he did not want to admit it, Dean had his doubts if Castiel had been telling the truth. 

Since he came into possession of Lucifer’s power, Castiel was different. He seemed more like the angel who gripped Dean tight and raised him from hell, and less like, well, Cas. There was something about him that made him look like a warrior, a soldier, again, but that was not what Dean was worried about. Whatever it was, he knew that they would somehow find a way to reverse it. What gave Dean headache was the fact that maybe Cas did not want to get rid of it.

Although it was Sam and Dean in the bunker, like it always had been, the place seemed emptier. The books, which used to be their main source of information and had come in handy in every case they had after moving to the bunker, seemed pointless now. Amara, Hands of God, nothing of that was known to the Men of Letters, and although they speculated about its existence, they had never thought that one day, there will be the need to vanquish God’s sister. Therefore, everything Dean could do was sit back and wait for Castiel to return.

And finally, three days after he had left, the angel appeared out of the blue.

“Hello, Sam" he said, nodding slightly. "Dean".

“Where the hell have you been, man?” Dean asked, standing up from his chair.

Castiel turned his head to the side a little.

“I told you, I was looking for a way to bring you on the ship” he responded. 

Dean closed his eyes, shaking his head, thinking “Yes, I know that, but – nevermind”.

“So, where do I buy the ticket?” he asked instead.

“To get you on the ship after the so called apocalyptic journey had started, a lot more than a simple ticket is needed” Castiel answered.

“Apocalyptic journey, wow” Sam added. “Sounds like a great idea, Dean” he said sarcastically.

“Shut up” his brother responded. “What exactly, Cas?”

“I don’t know”.

“You what?” Dean hissed, making a noticable break between the words. Three days had the angel been gone, three angels had Dean been hanging on a cliff, and all that for an “I don’t know”.

“I am not in possession of that information” the angel answered. “But I do know who might be”.

“Don’t say it".

“I’ll say it” Sam added, happy that more and more arguments, which proved what a terrible idea the whole ship things was, showed up. “Metatron”.

That name was one of the very few Dean did not want to hear at the moment. Why had he not said Crowley's name, or even that of the dead bitch, Rowena? Anything would have been more appreciated but Metatron. The infamous scribe of God, the Angel who probably did more evil to this world than Lucifer, was supposed to be their only chance. 

But still, there were things none of them had control of. 

“So where do we find him?” he asked.

“Oh” Castiel answered. “I already found him”.

“And what’d he say?” the boys asked impatiently at the same time.

“Well, I asked him politely and he did not want to talk, so I tortured him,-" Castiel smirked, "- but he is such a miserable human being that not even agonizing pai could make him give up the conditions he set. Apparently, he wants some of my grace”.

“Wait, you -” Sam asked, “-you tortured him?”

“Yes” Castiel responded.

Something in Castiel’s voice revealed that the first part of the sentence had been a lie and that he never talked to Metatron in a non violent way. It was that fact which worried Dean the most. First Castiel zapped away without keeping them current for days. He was an angel, he could search around the whole world for anything, no matter how tiny, in matter of seconds. So why did he not just fly back into the bunker, say that he was still alive and zap away immediately? 

The feeling of losing Cas became so strong, that he could sense it laying on his shoulders.

“And you never thought of talking to us before you beat the crap out of him?” Dean said. His voice was gravelly. You could sense the anger coming from it.

“You would have acted the same” Castiel answered, taking a seat in a chair, ignoring Dean’s rage. “The conversation was inconclusive anyway. He wants something that we will not give him, my grace”.

“No, Cas” Dean interrupted. “Lucifer’s grace. That power has nothing to do with you”.

Castiel squeezed his eyes tighter. He tilted his head to his shoulder, apparently confused by whatever Dean was trying to say.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean-“ Dean said, “- he is our only shot. How big of an issue can Metatron with a little grace be? If we don’t hunt Amara down, that feeble grandpa will be our least problem”.

“No, Dean” Cas said, wondering how Dean could sound so clueless when he knew almost everything Castiel knew too. “That weapon is only one of many Hands of God. They are all equally powerful. I just need a little more time and I’ll locate another one”.

Dean felt his guts turn. Sure, Cas was right, but defeating Amara was not the only thing he wanted. He needed to go on that ship, to do someone who was Benny’s family a favor. He needed to wake up at night and realize that he was not a burden to this world, the man who murdered his best friend. 

“No, Cas” he said. “It has to be that weapon. I have a strong feeling about that”.

“But why?” Cas asked, now even more perplexed.

“You have to trust me, man. You need to” Dean said. “This is not the first time that you have to make a choice like this. We’ve been through a hell lot of crap in the past, and even when everything was pointing in the direction of me being wrong, you chose to trust me, and look at us, we’re still standing upright. So please, Cas, choose me only one more time. I’m begging you".

His words sounded credible. He was an experienced hunter, he had a gut feeling which rarely let him down. Sure, it was almost the perfect show he had pulled off. But Castiel was close enough to look deep into his eyes, and see that those were all white lies.

He stood up and came so close, that Dean could feel his breath on his face, who instinctively stepped back.

“Is that what you really think?” Castiel asked, not even blinking. His voice was so dull that it sent shivers down Dean’s spine.

“W-what?” Dean asked. 

“Do you really think I chose you over everyone else? You in particular? I chose humanity, Dean, because that is how my father commanded. We have been through a lot together, but I am an angel of the Lord, not an angel of Dean Winchester. Everything I have done, I’ve done it because I believed it would protect humanity. It’s coherence with your opinions had nothing to do with you. I never chose you, Dean. I chose all of my father’s creations. That is my purpose”.

The bunker went silent. Sam gazed at a leg of the table, feeling a strong urge to leave immediatelly.

But Dean, he was speechless. Everything he ever thought of his friendship with Cas, of the fact that their bond was much more than a friendship, was one sided, nothing but the pure need of a soldier to fulfill the demands of his general. He felt his chest being ripped apart, as he stood there motionless. The only person in the entire universe who was not his brother and whom he had trusted with his life, with Sammy’s life, had just said that he would give them up if the command coming from upstairs said so.

And suddenly, it was only the Winchesters in the bunker again.

Castiel found himself standing next to a road, where he had already been once during his first months on Earth. The grace inside him did nothing but repair his wings and give him a little power boost. The emotions he felt were still as human as at the time when he worked in that shop, home- and graceless. 

He felt a sharp pain around his heart, reminiscing what had just happened.

Of course he would always choose Dean. He would pick him before any angel, any human, even before the whole human and angel race. He would without hesitation give up his own life, if it meant that Dean Winchester would live. 

What he could not handle was the knowledge that Dean would never choose him first.


End file.
